Ruling may close loophole in law

The Associated Press

Published Tuesday, June 03, 2008

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- A federal ruling that the Army Corps of Engineers wrongly waived a permit for logging on a private lake has clarified an exemption in pollution laws and could lead to better wetland protection, an environmental group said Monday.

The Southern Environmental Law Center sued in 2006 over the Corps' decision that owners of Cypress Lake didn't need a logging permit to cut down cypress, swamp blackgum and water tupelo trees growing on 60 acres of the manmade lake near Statesboro.

The Ogeechee-Canoochee Riverkeeper, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, argued harvesting trees from the lake would destroy habitat used by wood storks, beavers and indigo snakes and harm the lake's wetland functions such as filtering pollutants and absorbing floodwaters.

The federal Clean Water Act requires a permit for logging and other actions that could pollute wetlands. But the Corps argued the lake's owners didn't need one because of an exemption in the law for "ongoing" tree farming, also called silviculture.

U.S. District Judge B. Avant Edenfield ruled May 27 the Corps failed to show there had been logging on the site in the past, or assurances the trees would grow back to allow harvesting in the future. Therefore, he ruled, it couldn't be classified as ongoing tree farming.